Gold

Was it that long ago when we held their timid little hands and helped them take that first step that would eventually lead us to let go? We dressed them in new clothes, fixed them a snack, tied their shoes, helped them blow their nose and off they went to kindergarten and their first days of school. We had no idea that these very children would someday define this town. I see them every day, dressed in a garb with signs that define their brashness. They're the 'High School Seniors' from the La Cañada schools: Flintridge Prep, Saint Francis, LCHS, Sacred Heart, Pinewood Academy, Renaissance Academy and Hillside School.

Following up from their second place finish in the San Clemente tournament, the La Cañada U10 Gold Softball team brought home the gold as the 2009 Moorpark Tournament Champions. La Cañada went undefeated in the tournament, posting a 5-0 record and outscoring their opponents 35-2 along the way. Hanna Heileson pitched a no hitter against Fillmore in the semi-final game. In the Championship game, La Cañada faced a rematch with a very tough Torrance squad they had beaten 1-0 a day earlier.

Powered by a career-best performance from 2008 La Cañada High graduate Patrick ?Russ? Burton, Fortune Fencing of Pasadena took first place in Senior Men?s Team Epee earlier this month at the Fencing National Championships in San Jose, Calif. Fortune?s three-man team of Burton, Garrett Carnahan and Sergio Fernandez bested 45 teams from across the country to take the title. It certainly didn?t come easy for Fortune as Burton, Carnahan and Fernandez had to hold off a last-minute surge from No. 1 seed Northwest Fencing Center of Oregon to get to the gold medal round.

The choral music department at La Cañada High School is attaining new heights this year, under the direction of choral director Anne Cherchian. The school’s 73-member concert choir recently returned from San Francisco, where it earned first place and a gold medal in its category at the Heritage Festival of Gold, as well as a special adjudicator’s award and an invitation to sing at the famed Carnegie Hall for an invitation-only festival in New York next fall. The concert choir earned a score of 94.5 of a possible 100 points.

The CCY Dragon swim team capped off a winning season by taking first place at the Southern California YMCA League Championships at the City of El Monte Aquatic Center. Ranging in age from six to seventeen, these 61 swimmers coached by Joy Lim, Richard Hamilton and John Loussisarian ended a stellar season as 48 young Dragons made the cut in the preliminary session to advance to finals. Eight Dragon swimmers had exceptional performances by winning all of their events, beginning with twelve-year-old Young Tae Seo who set a league record in the boys' 11-12 200 IM, then went on to ace the 100 and 200 free and anchor a winning relay.

When the random bracket drawings were released for the 10 and under division of the recent Amateur Softball Association Western District tournament at Santa Paula, it was quickly apparent that La Cañada's two 10 and under teams would play each other if they both lost their first games. That scenario ultimately played out. In its first game, the 10 and Under Gold Team faced off against San Clemente, taking a 1-0 lead when Campbell Owen bunted for a single, stole two bases and was singled in by Catherine Horner, who went 3-for- 3 at the plate.

La Cañada's 10-and-under Gold Team won two out of four games at Moorpark's seventh annual girls softball tournament, barely missing a chance to play in an eight-team single elimination playoff. Eighteen teams competed in the 10 and Under age division. The Spartans opened with a 3-1 victory over Sierra Madre, which had eliminated La Cañada in the prior week's tournament at Sylmar. Sierra Madre had no answer for Stephanie Bathke, who pitched a one-hitter with one walk and 13 strikeouts.

Since 1861, 3,459 individuals have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Of the 770 Nobel Laureates, 112 received the Nobel Peace Prize. And nearly 36,000 individual and team Olympic medals have been awarded since 1932. Through a priceless exhibit of more than 300 hand-crafted medals on loan from recipients and artists of the American Medallic Sculpture Association (AMSA), Forest Lawn Museum introduces medallic art to Los Angeles. The medals, on exhibit beginning Jan. 22, are rare in their artistry, detail and beauty and serve as art pieces expressing thoughts about life.

Pro skater and X-Games gold medalist Ryan Sheckler will be at Sport Chalet this Sunday to make a personal appearance, greeting fans, signing things and promoting Ryan Sheckler?s Lip Balmer. (He won?t be skating, though, according to a representative with Alison Brod Public Relations). In 2003, Sheckler became the youngest gold medalist in X Games history when he won the gold medal in the street discipline. He has since won numerous medals at different contests. Sheckler more recently won a gold medal in street skating at the 2008 X-Games.

Area 1 2600 block Pontiac Street: A woman left her house on Aug. 27 at 10:30 a.m. When she returned several hours later she found that a laundry-room window had been forced open and an engagement ring was missing. The total loss and damage was estimated at $2,305. 2500 block of Teasley Street: A woman left her house on Aug. 28 at 2 p.m. She returned three hours later to find the home had been burglarized. The intruder apparently entered through an unlocked window at the rear of the residence.

What once was a filing room at Glendale Adventist Medical Center is now a second home for cancer patients to rest and relax between appointments. A ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 11 at Glendale Adventist's Center for Cancer Services celebrated the opening of Ingeborg's Place Apart's new location. Ingeborg's Place Apart is a room that provides cancer patients with a soothing and supportive environment to relax between appointments, procedures or classes. A wide range of educational materials or specialty image enhancement products like wigs, hats or scarves are available to patients there.

Visitors who look skyward at San Diego's Wild Animal Park are now seeing more than the usual assortment of exotic birds. Up in the sky about six stories above the brown hillside is a new kind of flying species soaring overhead at about 40 mph, swooping to a sudden stop atop a platform the park has built especially for the species' arrival. These creatures might logically be called the Smiling, Laughing Zip Line Riders because invariably that's what they do when they finish their breathtaking two-thirds-of-a-mile flight from a perch high above the hillside.

Memorial Park's function as a meeting place was the same on Saturday, but on a deeper level. Kidsave, a nonprofit organization based out of Culver City, chose La Cañada as the site for a weekend event where older orphaned and abandoned children could form lifelong connections with families. "The goal of these events is to engage the families and the kids," said Lauren Reicher-Gordon, Kidsave's vice president and director of their Family Visit Program. "We do activities the families can do with them instead of just observing them."

While most people take their summer to relax, a group of a dozen 12-year-old girls from La Cañada were busy winning a championship. For the first time ever, a 12-and-under La Cañada youth softball team won the state championship, garnering the honor on July 18 in Camarillo, as the La Cañada 12U Gold blew past Sylmar, 11-3, to claim the 2010 ASA (Amateur Softball Assn.) Southern California State Championship. Last year, they got a taste of the state championship and they wouldn't be denied the second time around.

According to the weather people on the various TV stations, we are headed for one of the coolest Julys in recent recorded history. Guess Mother Nature just knew some of us were loving that "June gloom" and just kept giving us extra servings. It was cool enough early Monday morning for me to dig out my fuzzy slippers because my feet were cold — who ever heard of that in July? So, for now I'm quite happy with our overcast mornings. . Even though we have been in the glooms in the a.m., by the time we reach the p.m. the day has warmed up sufficiently to give us balmy nights.

There are cycles of fashion trends from which to choose clothing styles that will personally work for you. Fashion trends evolve, disappear and reappear. As I have previously indicated, your personal style is based on your clothing personality, coloring, bone structure, energy intensity and body structure. Education is essential to work through the many choices that you will have each season. New trends are introduced before each season. Sometimes, it is difficult to think about purchasing bathing suits when snow is on the ground, or purchasing coats when the weather is 102 degrees.

A movie inspired Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy senior Mimi Spindle to research the Los Angeles County foster care system. She questioned whether it could be as terrible as portrayed in the film. What she unearthed — statistics on abandonment, abuse, addiction and constant relocations — shocked Spindle, but it also spurred her into action. She sought out Kidsave, a Culver City-based nonprofit organization that works to connect older orphaned and abandoned children with loving families.

La Cañada High School has cracked another list of America's best schools. "I think the fact we consistently keep showing up on the upper end of these lists shows we have a very robust and high-quality program," La Cañada school board member Joel Peterson said. When Newsweek released its list of the 1,623 best high schools in America last month La Cañada High ranked at number 297. This goes along with the U.S. News and World Report's list of the best high schools in the United States, which was released in December and pegged LCHS at No. 80. "We don't put much weight into any single ranking given," Peterson said.